In the fourth episode of The Mandalorian season 3, we finally learned who saved Grogu from the Jedi Temple on the night of Order 66. Jar Jar Binks actor Ahmed Best returned to the Star Wars franchise as Kelleran Beq, a mysterious character who managed to get The Child off Coruscant before he could be killed by Palpatine's brainwashed Clone Troopers.
There's clearly still more story to be told there, and we're sure season 4 will show us what happened next.
In the meantime, The Mandalorian executive producers Jon Favreau and Dave Filoni have opened up on bringing the Jedi into the Disney+ series. They also reflected on the experience of seeing Best in action as someone he first played in YouTube's Jedi Temple Challenge game show.
Filoni started by saying, "We come up with these ideas and think who might work. We make sure, before we get too far, to bring them into the process so it's not just like, 'Here's who you're gonna play,' it's 'What do you think of this? We want you to be this person [so] what are your thoughts on it?'"
"We want to make it a real collaboration and think it's key to the success of it. I didn't know how much he knew about martial arts. He picks up a lightsaber and he's suddenly swinging it all around."
Favreau would go on to add, "He knows how to do double wielding and he'd done a lot of work on that character for Jedi Temple Challenge. He's been involved with Star Wars all the way through and had formulated this character. We love to draw in from all of Star Wars and even things that aren't canon...if they feel right, we'll pull them in."
"It just made sense. You're also looking at, 'Who could it be? Who is on the list?' You don't want to just put a Jedi in there," Favreau continued. "It was great. And now that character exists squarely in Star Wars canon, and boy, I think people dig seeing that character. I want to learn more about that character."
Filoni agreed that the cameo made fans "happy" (it did), and went on to say what a special experience it was seeing Best back on set after previously being surrounded by Clone Troopers - albeit CG ones - while working with George Lucas on the prequels movies.
Are you excited to see more of Kelleran Beq in action?